An Illustrated History of Washington Bipartisanship

Ever since the U.S. political system solidified into its current two-party form (that is, post-Federalist, post-Whig, and post-“Democrat-Republican”), Washington—in terms of cross-party cooperation—has experienced good times and bad. As Todd S. Purdum illustrates in “Washington, We Have a Problem,” in V.F.’s September issue, the present moment certainly qualifies as one of the ugly times. And as the Obama administration celebrates landmark victories with the passage of the health-care and financial-reform bills, both achieved with the thinnest possible veneer of bipartisan oomph imaginable (a single House Republican voted for the health-care bill, and only three Republican senators broke ranks to vote for the financial-reform bill), here’s a look back at some of the important moments when politicians set aside their grievances and extended open hands across the aisle—for better or worse.

With Fascism defeated, Soviet-backed Communism emerged as the United States’ new global threat. The Truman Doctrine developed against the backdrop of the Greek Civil War, when the U.S. sent assistance to the beleaguered Greek and Turkish governments as they fought the Russian-supported Communist parties for control of Greece, amid the ruins of German and Italian occupation. Authorizing such aid—and vowing to “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”—wasn’t a political slam dunk. The Truman administration was able to convince a skeptical Congress only after Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave the legislation his full support. Victory was achieved in Greece, and the United States’ long-term defensive strategy of deterrence and containment against Communism, which would guide U.S. foreign policy for the next 50 years, was set. That same year, Truman also inaugurated the Marshall Plan, the United States’ economic package to help with Europe’s postwar recovery, which Vandenberg also worked to deliver.

Eighteen Democratic senators from the South opposed the Civil Rights Bill—introduced by President Kennedy in 1963 and pushed forward by President Johnson immediately after assuming office—even as ghastly images of racial violence across the South permeated the news media. The Southern senators joined forces to create a formidable filibuster, which lasted 57 days (at one point the late Senator Robert Byrd read a 14-hour speech). The groundbreaking legislation—aimed at ending segregation in schools and the workplace and correcting flaws in voter registration—was possible only after Democratic majority leader Mike Mansfield and Republican senator Everett Dirksen bridged the gap in support. In the end, 27 Republicans cast their votes in favor of the bill.

These amendments to the Social Security Act were government-sponsored programs to provide health care to senior citizens and to the poor, respectively. They emerged—as the Civil Rights Act, the Secondary Education Act, and the Corporation of Public Broadcasting did—from L.B.J.’s sweeping vision for the Great Society. Medicaid was a “rider” tacked onto the bill very late into the legislative process, and few took notice. Medicare, however, was hotly debated in Congress, and it faced some powerful opponents—including the American Medical Association. In the end it passed when 70 House Republicans and 16 Senate Republicans voted for it.

Both Republicans and Democrats struggled to make sense of the swirling allegations that plagued the White House during the height of the Watergate scandal, after burglars associated with President Nixon’s re-election committee broke into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington. Soon the bipartisan Senate Watergate Committee was convened—co-chaired by Senator Sam Ervin, a Democrat from North Carolina, and Senator Howard Baker, a Republican from Tennessee—and tasked with plumbing the depths for answers. (Baker famously asked, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”) The committee held hundreds of hours of hearings, which were aired on television for a rapt national audience, and many incriminating details emerged. Nixon resigned in 1974.

The United States Food Stamp program had a long and tedious legislative history after it was initially discontinued following the Great Depression. Re-established by L.B.J., it was tangled in a web of state bureaucracies until 1977, when both Republicans and Democrats introduced proposals to fix the program. Common ground was found by Democratic senator George McGovern and Republican senator Bob Dole, who together advocated for streamlining the program by cutting costs, resolving eligibility problems, and making it easier for participants to receive their food stamps.

Since F.D.R., history has suggested that taking on Social Security is overt political suicide (it’s also known as the political “third rail”). But by the early 1980s, the fund was on the brink of insolvency, and legislators were forced to re-examine the program. A bipartisan presidential committee was created to negotiate reforms to Social Security, but its recommendations got bogged down in Congress. Democratic senator Pat Moynihan, of New York, approached Republican senator Bob Dole, of Kansas, on the Senate floor, and they agreed to lead a last-ditch push at reform. Thirteen days later, Republicans and Democrats reached an agreement.

Fourteen million Americans received welfare when President Clinton took office, in 1993. The goal of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was to wean many of them off government assistance and nudge them back into the workforce with low-income jobs. The legislation, which ended a 60-year federal guarantee of aid to the poor, angered many Democrats (three high-ranking Clinton-administration officials resigned in protest), but also irked conservatives who considered the bill’s incentives, such as help with child care and transportation for welfare recipients who found employment, to be too generous. Regardless, nearly every House and Senate Republican voted in favor of the measure, and a majority of Senate Democrats supported it, too. After the bill's passage, the country saw a sharp decline in poverty rates and the number of people on the welfare rolls.

One of President George W. Bush’s first initiatives after taking office was an overhaul of standards-based education programs. The bill, No Child Left Behind, enjoyed the support of Democratic senator Ted Kennedy, of Massachusetts, and subsequently sailed through the House and the Senate, and was signed into law by President Bush. Whether the legislation ultimately improved students’ performance remains unclear.

Twenty-three Democratic senators, including Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, voted to give President Bush authorization to invade Iraq. These votes, of course, were cast based on false evidence and bad intelligence—the phantom Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and weapons programs. Since the invasion, more than 4,000 American soldiers have lost their lives, innumerably more Iraqis have been killed, and millions have been displaced. According to a 2007 ABC News poll of the Senate, if given the benefit of hindsight, the same legislators who voted 77-23 in favor of the war in 2003 would have voted 57-43 against it.